idk - i joke around and then stuff happens. the second section is stolen entirely from someone else!
2014
"You know, I'm kind of excited about this," says Marshall, standing on a chair to fasten the corner of the banner to the wall.
"Marshall, this is serious!" Ted says. "We have to take this seriously! This is really — serious!"
"Hey, calm down. We've done this a few times before," says Lily, rubbing his bicep comfortingly.
Robin helps Marshall move the chair a few feet to the right. Barney continues to read the small pile of letters in his hands. "It's just," Marshall elaborates, climbing back up onto the chair, "it's real now, you know?"
"What's real?" says Tracy, coming out of the kitchen with beers for everyone and a bowl of nachos. She stops short, spotting the banner hanging above them, hung just in time. Tracy's eyes go wide, and she looks around in incredulous disbelief: at the others in her living room, at the INTERVENTION banner on the wall, Marshall still standing on the chair. She gives a tentative smile. "Uhm, okay, what's going on, exactly?"
Ted clears his throat and stands up from the sofa, his expression stricken. "Tracy… this… is an intervention," he says gravely.
"You've been stealing food off our plates, and that's just not cool," Robin says.
Barney hands her the stack of letters he's been perusing and gives Tracy a look of pure betrayal. "Not cool? Not cool? It's an outrage!"
"But we love you very much," Ted says pointedly, shooting Barney a look.
Marshall jumps down from the chair, a six foot four inch bundle of excited glee. "Welcome to the gang!"
2016
"But —" says Robin.
"Nope," Ted says.
"Guys —" says Barney.
"Ah-ah-ah, no way," says Tracy.
"It's too late, we already filed the papers —" Robin starts to argue, only to be loudly shushed by Lily. Bewildered, she shushes. Barney crosses his arms and sinks into the sofa.
"Filed, maybe, but for an American citizen and a Canadian citizen to file for a divorce in a third country neither reside in? They haven't been processed yet," says Marshall. "Lawyered."
"Here's the deal," says Ted. "Either we dig the banner out of the attic and do this old school, talk about how much we love you guys and how much you guys love you guys and how stupid you're being —"
"Very stupid," Marshall interjects.
"Or we lock the two of you in a room together until you talk it out," Lily says, her expression 85% of the way to you're both dead to me.
"What, again? Aren't we allowed to make hasty, life altering decisions on our own?" Barney whines.
"Yeah, like, isn't that kind of our thing?" Robin says defensively, gesturing at the space between the two of them.
"It's totally our thing."
"Yeah, remember Turkey?"
"More like chicken, after we left."
"Sure you can," says Tracy. "Just not stupid ones."
"That's family, bitch," Lily shrugs. She and Ted high-five.
2025
"This is going to be so awesome!" says Barney. He and Ted high five, which turns into roughhousing on Ted's front lawn that they're both definitely too old for.
"Is it really?" Marshall asks, looking concerned at the banner hanging from the trees. "Is it really awesome?"
"Yeah!" says Ted, winded.
"Just ten years ago you were calling it a rite of passage," Tracy says pointedly.
Marshall shrugs and sighs.
"I just can't believe it!" Lily sniffles. Robin is rubbing her arm, trying to comfort her.
"I know, baby," Marshall says, more than a little anxious himself. He gives his wife a hug and she falls into his arms. "Marvin's much too young to be thinking about girls. He should wait until college," he says, wrapping his arms around her. "Like we did."
"Maybe if you want him to grow up totally lame," Barney mutters under his breath. Robin rolls her eyes.
"He's just growing up so fast," Lily says with a tremulous smile.
"Yeah, he's gotten so big," Robin says, a little misty herself with nostalgia for her godson. "I'll never have to pick him up ever again."
"Our baby's first intervention!" Lily sniffles, giving in to tears of mixed fear and joy.
2030
"Just then, the train pulled up," Ted says, sighing happily. "We climbed onboard. Your mother and I didn't talk about it, but I knew even then that I wanted to sit with her. I didn't want to stop talking to her for even a second. The first car didn't have any empty seats. The second car had a few, but they were scattered, so I suggested to your mother that we try the next car. And you know what? She agreed. I remember thinking, I'd just met her, walked up to her at the train station, I barely knew her. She barely knew me. But already, maybe, just maybe, we had enough of a connection that she wanted to sit with me, too. I'd already felt it. But I'd thought I'd felt it before, too. We went into the third car, and —"
There's a knock on the study door. Penny and Luke jump, startled out of their stupors. Ted frowns at the intrusion. The door opens, and Barney sticks his head in.
"What are you doing here?" Ted asks.
Barney sucks in a breath through his teeth. "Yeaaaah… hey, Ted, can you come out here for a second?"
Ted frowns. "Ten minute break, kids," he says, lifting himself out of his armchair with some difficulty.
Everyone is in the living room. Not just the gang, but everyone — Stuart, Claudia, Esther; Blitz; the Captain, looking dashing with his cane; James and Tom Stinson and their adult children; Tracy's parents; his mother and Clint and Heather; Ranjit; Carl, Wendy, Billy Zabka, Gary Blauman, Punchy, Brad, several of Ted's former and current students, Scooter and Jasmine, Klaus and Victoria, Judy and Mickey, Patrice, Sandy Rivers, busily hitting on Cindy and her wife; Arthur Hobbs, Alan Thicke, and others, crowding the living room and spilling out into the hall. As Ted gapes, Penny and Luke slip out to join the crowd; Luke high-fiving Marvin and Lily putting a comforting hand on Penny's shoulder. Everyone has letters in their hands.
The old banner hangs proudly above the fireplace.
Robin clears her throat and steps forward, her expression grave. "Theodore Mosby… this is an intervention."